To produce a single volume within psychoanalysis that can live up to the label “essential” is a tall order for an editor and publisher. A compilation of papers worthy of the title Essential Papers on Character Neurosis and Treatment seems especially formidable. The present volume is one of a series of Essential Papers on Psychoanalysis from New York University Press.

Perhaps the greatest challenge taken up by Dr. Lax in this volume is that of assembling a range of papers that is both longitudinal and cross-sectional in nature. By this I mean that the reader should gain both an historical appreciation of the development of the concepts of character and treatment of character disorders from a psychoanalytic perspective, on one hand, and an appreciation